


Anarchist Family Bonding

by CheshireCaine



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Funny, Gen, Happy, In Spite of a Nail, Kon's a Kurosaki goddammit, Kurosaki Family Antics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCaine/pseuds/CheshireCaine
Summary: If Ichigo never met Rukia but, inevitably, headed for Soul Society anyway.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo & Kurosaki Isshin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	Anarchist Family Bonding

**Author's Note:**

> haven't written in a while so this was a fun, fluffy exercise. (Haven't edited a fic this seriously in an age lmao.)

“ _I_ can’t believe your secret shame was giving grans a leg up into Takamagahara. Like a shuttle bus.”

“Shame?” Isshin tossed his wooden pole aside and turned to grumble at his son, “I wasn’t a shuttle bus for grannies. There were non-grannies too. Sometimes I fought monsters!”

“I guess,” Ichigo conceded, busy twisting his pole deeper into the dirt to lean on.

“And Soul Society doesn’t have the bedazzle . . . The glittery factor of Takamagahara.”

Father and son shuddered. The B-word was struck from the Kurosaki family lexicon after Yuzu avenged her lost tampons by stapling the back of Kon’s plushie body with rhinestones. It joined the list under _thong_ for reasons no man in the household wanted to revisit.

Isshin nodded thanks as Ichigo passed him a bucket and brush. “Some of the real thumb-up-arse nobles would call that Seireitei, but it’s not physically above the Rukongai.” He dropped into a squat. “It’s just ego.”

Ichigo hmmed, fidgeting as he compared the ground carvings to his memory of the sketch he’d destroyed before Karin could summon a backyard portal to hell. “So Takamagahara is . . . the place where Kuukaku-baa-san’s fireworks are visible.”

“Exactly. Ichi, why have you given me a bucket of blood?” Isshin sniffed at the red coating his finger.

“It’s non-toxic paint. Yuzu said we couldn’t poison any bunnies and this should leave less traces.” Ichigo tested it with a swipe outside the circle, kicking some soil over the evidence. “It was the first colour I grabbed before your _friend_ could start poking around me at the DIY store.”

Isshin blubbered into his sleeve. “I wish my lovely Masaki was here to see her Ichigo. All grown-up and swerving Urahara to protect his precious father-son bonding time. She’d love to hear it.”

“Aghhh, Oyaji, stop fake-crying.” Isshin kept dabbing at his dry cheeks. “She’s at home. Stop acting like Mum’s dead already.”

“‘Already’? I thought she had indigestion – how much mochi did she eat at the picnic?”

“Uhh-”

“My boy, you might have a gorgeous mochi sister by the end of the day.”

“Eww,” Ichigo lobbed a sponge at his dad’s head. “I dunno how much. Karin said she won an eating contest, so they martyred Kon to serve her through recovery.”

“They do eating contests at school picnics now?”

“No . . . ?”

The Kurosaki men admired Masaki’s fortitude and poor impulse control, then fell to their knees and painted more vigorously, desperate not to join Kon in his masochistic sacrifice.

“We already have Kon, who needs another son? I, for one, will love my mochi daughter with all my heart. The to-be-named . . . Ume! Or Mikan! _Sakura!”_

“Do you think children should only be named after fruit?”

“We can still change your name to Ichi- _ro?_ Or Kon can go first and you can take Jirou.”

“I don’t care if he was left in a crate for decades, I’m still the eldest!”

“It’s fine, Ichi. Kon’s legal name is Nori!”

“So you’ll do fruit and seaweed!”

“Ichigos aren’t even berries. Sometimes we bend the rules! And your plum/orange/cherry-flavoured sister can complain too.”

Ichigo groaned. “It doesn’t even matter anyway. Kaa-san’s probably fine, just playing it up so Kon makes dinner.”

 _“True.”_ Isshin wedged his face in the curve between thumb and forefinger, smearing his chin with crimson. “The reliable way to spawn new Kurosakis is to repeat the Masaki vs. PTA 2017 Summer Throwdown.”

“So much milk pudding.”

“Too few lactase pills.”

Ichigo slapped a hand over his mouth against the phantom taste of vomit.

“So,” began Isshin, pulling wet air through his teeth. “Yuzu graduated Kon past instant ramen already?”

Ichigo peeled his fingers from his face, mouth downturned in a grimace. “No, she refused till New Year at least.”

“Remind me to bulk order surgical wipes.”

They painted faster, faces bowed so low Ichigo could sneeze dirt. Nightmare fuel was too kind to describe Masaki’s piercing screams as she raved against her confinement to the toilet seat. (Though it perfectly suited Yuzu’s after Kon did udon.)

Ichigo hopped to his feet. “Done. _Finally_.” He dove for their bags, rummaging till he could drag out his robes.

Isshin chuckled, shrugging off his shirt and intercepting the fabric flying at his face. “Patience is a virtue. This isn’t like setting the record for bankai,” as he shuffled into his own disguise kimono. 

They’d painstakingly stitched in the intricate reiatsu-suppression seals between patients and Ichigo’s homework. Isshin sewed his robes to his trouser leg three times (that Ichigo saw). But Ichigo’s coursework became so speckled with red his teacher mistook it for being covered in ants. Eventually, he conceded, bowed his head to his mum and accepted her thimble over another involuntary visit to the nurse’s office.

“Though, _shikai_ was a different story.”

“It’s not my fault! Zangetsu-”

“Zangetsu is you.”

“. . . Well, kidou sucked too.”

“But kidou’s one of the best parts! I didn’t see you complain as much about zanjutsu. You can bash a rock and say it translates to fighting, but kidou’s challenging for a reason.” Isshin smacked his fist into his palm. “You have to develop the skill from scratch. Kidou aptitude is about as real as Kon’s third testicle.”

“Oyaji, not this lecture again.”

“It’s a _long_ run through the Dangai, Ichi. If ever there’s a time to revise kidou theory, it’s right now.”

“I shoulda traded places with Nori.”

“Yeah, you shoulda,” Isshin chortled, laughing harder when Ichigo crossed his arms. “But why waste all this effort?” Isshin moved his fingers through the air in slow, practiced movements and began to chant.

Ichigo shoved a sealed and petulant Zangetsu into a drawstring bag and swung him over his back, ready behind Isshin. “Soul Society Invasion Take One, action!”

The air rippled like shifting sand, space unravelling into dappled blue – a perfect clone of the summer sky. The portal’s warped surface dashed flares across their vision and mustered a wind to tug at their hair with gentle fingers.

“Dibs not cleaning up the portal on the way home.”

“You can’t call dibs!”

Isshin gasped. “Your mother needs me. And only if _you_ open the portal next time.”

“I don’t- Unfair!”

Isshin shot him a mutinous grin. “Race you to Soul Society then.”

Ichigo _fizzed_ as reiryoku danced along his spine. “You’re on, old man!” He shoved reiatsu into his feet and burst through the portal first.


End file.
